3 Reasons Why Smart People Do Dumb Things All the Time

An investigation into the science of smart decision making.

Every day, at least one smart person doesn’t wear a seatbelt, crosses the street without looking both ways, or hits reply-all when she really meant to reply to one person. The repercussions of these offenses, which range from mild embarrassment to untimely death, are familiar to all of us. We heed ample warnings from parents, teachers, friends, and colleagues — and if that doesn’t sufficiently caution us, we simply refer to those real-life what-went-terribly-wrong stories that someone you know always seems to know: So and so died because he didn’t wear a seatbelt, or got hit by a car because she crossed the street when she shouldn’t have.

When we hear these stories secondhand, it’s easy to dismiss the victims as stupid or careless. We might wonder, “Why weren’t they thinking?" At the same time, we don’t think twice about getting into a taxi and not wearing a seat belt or running across the street when cars are speeding toward us. (I am guilty of bot.) Somehow we are able to ignore our innate common sense and engage in this risky and foolish behavior. Why?

One answer, according to Heather Butler, an assistant professor of psychology at California State University, is that smart people aren’t actually all that smart. In a recent article for Scientific American, Butler tackles the subject of why smart people behave foolishly by differentiating between intelligence and critical-thinking skills. She argues that intelligence, which is largely measured by IQ and test scores, is largely unrelated to critical thinking, “a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-oriented fashion, and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate.” In simpler terms, skilled critical thinkers rely on logic, facts, and evidence to help guide their opinions and behavior.

For a real-world example, look at the difference between climate change believers and deniers. Most of the scientific community (97 percent) strongly believes that climate change is a real threat to the environment, citing measurable data points, including increased CO2 in the atmosphere, droughts, temperatures, and sea surface temperatures. Meanwhile, as Motherboard puts it, climate change deniers, which make up as much as half of the U.S. Congress, chalk it up to “solar activity, corruption among scientists, Al Gore, and the discerning will of God.” They also claim that the Earth’s climate has always been changing, which is technically true, until you are presented with recent studies which suggest that the planet should now be entering a cooling, not warming period. This is not to say all climate change deniers are inherently stupid. Some skeptics are, in fact, objectively intelligent people, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. Researchers found that their belief (or disbelief) stems from a conflict of interest “between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share, in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare.” That is to say, these otherwise intelligent individuals simply choose party over country — or, in this case, facts.

A lack of critical-thinking skills may not be the only reason why otherwise smart people engage in dumb behavior. The “What the Hell” effect has been closely associated with the psychology of dieting. Dieters who struggle with self-control know the scenario all too well: You promise to deny yourself sweets, but eventually you cave and take one bite. And since you already took that one bite, you think to yourself, “What the hell? I already ruined this diet,” and finish off the entire bag. This effect doesn’t only apply to eating or drinking: Many of us are quick to sacrifice our willpower (and best intentions) when it comes to goals related to personal relationships, shopping, or even work. You already texted your ex once? Might as well text him again. You already went over your budget? A couple hundred more dollars won’t make much of a difference. Yet, when they happen to us, we tend to interpret these actions as moments of weakness, not stupidity.

This brings us to the third reason why intelligent people make foolish mistakes: Smart people tend to think they are smarter and better than everyone else. In the cookie-binging example, a smart person might blame the person who baked the cookies instead of the person who ate them. Professor Andre Spicer refers to this as the self-serving bias:

Not everyone can be above average — but we can all have the illusion that we are ... We collect all the information we can find to prove ourselves right and ignore any information that proves us wrong. We feel good, but we overlook crucial facts. As a result, the smartest people ignore the intelligence of others so they make themselves feel smarter.

This explanation might best explain why so many of us think seat belts are optional, or that running into traffic is fine, or driving like a maniac is perfectly acceptable. We elevate our abilities, our luck, and our smarts so much that we believe we are invincible, and if something does happen to go awry, it’s not our fault. While self-serving bias helps to protect and boost our self-esteem, the obvious downside is that it might weaken our sense of personal responsibility and our ability to realize when we are, in fact, being stupid.

I can't see any mention of the subconscious (or what ever the current buzz term is for it) as being a possible factor. If the person crossing the road has some sort of deeply buried "death wish" (for whatever reason), then the apparent "accidental behaviour" might not be so accidental at all. Belief structures have a mind and will of their own and we must all attempt to honestly understand ourselves as much as possible in order to defuse these possible dangerous drives/urges. Those "selves" can take charge exactly at the moments of distraction or vagueness of lucidity when the "main ego" is on autopilot. Yes, it is verging into the "multiple personality" area, but it must be understood that the psyche is constructed of many differing components, some of which might be antagonistic to each other, or to the main executive ego (which is mistakenly identified as the true "self" and the only thing that exists). So I don't think that it has much to do with whatever labels (smart/dumb/clever/wise) are used. The fat person may have a deep seated loathing of themselves which they have taken on as an intrinsic part of their core identity. How then can they allow reduction of certain actions (such as eating) which might bring about thin-ness (reduction of the reason to self-loathe) when that would be contrary to their identification of "fatness"? So they eat all the biscuits and find some excuses which pacify the cognitive dissonance which is meant to lead them to examining their actual core "self truths". Also, don't forget that society says that one *loses* weight. This labels the supposed "gain" (thin-ness) as actually a loss, and the whole human mechanism is built around the fundamental concept of homeostasis. "Losing" anything from an evolutionary point of view is considered bad because it is implicitly a deficit. So here we have neurolinguistic programming coming into the picture as well. The body sees the "loss" of fat as a loss of part of itself and the identification with fatness as part of the self identity (self loathing) ensures that the fatness is seen as part of the personal self-truth. It is only the topmost (ignorant) ego that says "I should be thin". The rest is saying "we need to be fat". So the ego tries to do the "willpower" thing. This of course is ridiculous because "willpower" (of ego origin) is a total fiction. It cannot exist anywhere but in the delusions of the ego which thinks it has the crown all to itself: as it conveniently ignores the complicated mass of psychological structures that it is sitting on top of. So looking for simplistic reasons for certain unexplained behaviours resulting from very complex drives seems quite childish to me. Each case is unique and has nothing at all to do with statistics or convenient labels.

Re: "One answer, according to Heather Butler, an assistant professor of psychology at California State University, is that smart people aren’t actually all that smart."

You can say that again.

Unfortunately, Idiot-Savant American Elites use academic pedigrees as proxies for genuine insight and wisdom. Harvard graduates and faculty thoroughly inculcated with arrogance, hubris and conceit by incubating on the Charles River have parachuted into Washington and Wall Street for decades where they proceeded to wreck businesses and whole economies, formulate pathological social policies with disastrous unintended consequences and instigate and prosecute Trillion dollar Wars to Nowhere.

And the perverse irony is that they always walk away rich from their wreckage.

It's a bit myopic, I think, embedding cheap, potentially biased political points into a 'professionalish' article--especially an article on something like intelligence/smartness (whatever the heck that is). Way over-simplified--like WAY over-simplified.